


stand or take the fall

by orphan_account



Category: BeamNG.drive (Video Game), McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Canon Divergence, Car Boys - Freeform, M/M, author's note regarding recent events at end, basically a retelling of car boys as a survival horror?, permanently incomplete, uhhhhh slow burn sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-01 15:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11489676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nick and Griffin find themselves far from home.





	1. empty and estranged

_The number you are trying to call could not be reached. Please leave a message after the tone._

_“Hey, uh, something’s gone really wrong. I, god, I don’t know where I am? It’s empty, and. And, uh, I, I don’t really– I don’t know any phone numbers except this one, I don’t...  
_ _I don’t know who you are, fuck, I don’t know_ if _you are– god, what if I’m the only one? Jesus fucki–”_

.

Nick’s routine is this:  
  
He drives. Forever.

Sometimes, when the dizzying monotony of the grid passing by below him becomes too much, he’ll squint up at the sun, silently beg it to move, to rise, set, to fucking explode, to do _something._ He’ll pry stiff fingers off of the steering wheel, jab uselessly at the buttons on the dashboard, stare at the digital clock that’s about as functional as the little screen stickers stores put on fucking display clocks. It doesn’t change. Nothing changes.

He’ll turn, dangerous, angry swerves that threaten to tip the truck, just to see the fucking graph paper concrete rotate before it goes back to endless monotony, in front of him, behind him, all around him, it feels like his _brain_ is squares.

He’ll lock his hands on the wheel, set his shoulders, ignore the shaking, try to ignore the desperate panic welling in his stomach, crawling slick and icy up his throat, until he’s choking around his own breath, watching vacantly as tears soak through his jeans in patches, barely registering the swollen, wet ache around his eyes, the pinching headache building at the base of his skull.

He’ll clamber into the back seat, curl into himself, let the quiet roar of the engine shake itself through his ribcage, sleep – maybe forever. He always wakes up with a discomfort that’s somewhere between not enough sleep and far too much, nausea sitting heavy in his gut and wary pain stretching underneath his eyes. The car doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look in the rear view mirror, if he can avoid it.

He’ll maneuver back into the driver’s seat, shrug out of his jacket, toss it in the back seat, blast the AC. He’ll look up.

He’ll see a trail of smoke in the distance.

.

He slams the brakes before he knows what he’s doing, almost throws himself through the windshield in the process, barely registers the blur of struggling with the car door, flinging it open, scrambling out and down onto the ground on shaking, unstable legs, doesn’t come back to himself until he’s hunched over on his hands and knees, retching violently and feeling the acute burn of nothing but bile in his throat.

He allows himself a few more hacking coughs before forcing himself to his feet, lurches unsteadily to the side and braces himself on the hood of the truck.

It’s – god, he spends some indeterminate time just _staring_ at it, the thin, almost invisible puffs just off past the horizon line and he’s waiting for it to vanish when he blinks, because shit, he hasn’t hallucinated yet but there’s a first time for everything, but the longer he looks the more real it seems, and then he’s taking off towards it at a dead run before it even _remotely_ occurs to him that it’d be quicker to drive.

The adrenaline’s got his heart in his throat, he’s caught between wheezing breaths and choked sobs with every step he takes closer and it’s _still there,_ and he knows somewhere past the reckless desperation making his head feel three times bigger and full of static shocks, knows with perfect, resigned clarity that if this isn’t real, then this is where he gives up, this is fucking it, he cannot spend another eternity driving nowhere in a nothing place.

.

Nick stares dumbly at the guy sitting cross-legged by the fire, and the guy stares back. He is, ostensibly, dressed like a seventh grade social studies teacher, with these kind of dorky glasses to match, sitting with his hands on his knees in front of a pathetically smoldering pile of unidentifiable fabric, and Nick is just staring at him and blinking and frowning, trying to figure out if he’s fucking _real._

The guy’s moment of dumbstruck silence only lasts a moment before he grins, and he’s got one of those smiles that kind of pulls his whole face _up,_ like he can’t _not_ express enthusiasm with every single movement of his body. “Dude, nice! I didn’t even _think_ of it bein’ a fucking signal fire, but hey, it did a pretty good job of attracting a wild boy!”

“You’re…” Nick starts, trails off, tries to shake a coherent thought into his head. The guy pushes himself to his feet and tugs his shirt straight, still smiling brightly at Nick like there’s absolutely nothing fucking bizarre about this situation. Nick tries again. “You’re, I’m, uh, what _is_ that?” He jerks his head awkwardly at the burning pile.

The guy scratches at the back of his neck, takes in a hissed breath between his teeth. _“That,_ well, that would be my jacket. I’ve been walking for uh, kind of a long time, I think, so I decided to stop, and I dunno if there’s nighttime here, but I kinda thought it would be a good idea to make a campfire.” He takes one look at Nick’s face and snorts. “Yeah, I know. In my defense, though, I was pretty fuckin’ sure I was dreaming until like, uh, pretty damn recently.”

“Oh,” Nick says, nodding dumbly.

.

“I’m Griffin,” the guy says, rocking back on his heels.

“I’m – oh, running, we should be running,” Nick replies distantly, as soon as he looks over Griffin’s shoulder. Griffin only barely has time to look over his shoulder, say “Whaaaaaaat the _fuck_ is that,” before Nick’s grabbed him _hard_ around the wrist and started dragging, running back in the direction that he _thinks_ the truck is, god he fucking _hopes_ it is but everything looks the same and he _really_ needs to get to his car and –

He lets out a harsh sigh of relief when he sees the sun gleaming off of the white paint, takes a moment to be deeply, _intensely_ grateful that it’s a lot fucking closer than he remembers it being, throws open the driver seat door and barks “Get the fuck in,” in Griffin’s general direction.

“You got a _whip?”_ Griffin’s clambering into the passenger seat beside him, and he looks at him wide-eyed with a hysterical sort of smile and says, “Nick, this changes _everything!”_

Nick absolutely does _not_ the fuck have time for _that,_ so he just turns the key in the ignition, slams the accelerator, tries not to look at the _Thing_ consuming more and more of the windshield in front of them. He turns the car so harshly he can _feel_ them tilting on two wheels, but he doesn’t give a fuck, he just needs that Thing behind him _yesterday,_ and he thinks, quietly, inanely, _this is why I don’t fucking stop the car._

.

He and Griffin let out near-simultaneous sighs when It disappears completely in the rear view behind them, and Nick slumps back in his seat with a sudden, heavy exhaustion. Without the consuming fear of being chased it’s getting harder and harder not to get distracted by Griffin, by the novelty of having a living, breathing human a couple of feet away from him, and his skin is pricking with it, the change in his space. Griffin, for his part, has been staring out of the back window for the last while, but his eyes keep flicking over to Nick, breath catching audibly and the air in the car tense, and he figures it’s only a matter of time now before the floodgates open and the questions begin.

Nick sets his shoulders, shakes his head, stares straight ahead.

They drive.


	2. from one and another

**_FROM: Unknown Number  
_ ** _i wonder how long itll be before this phone runs out of batteries_

 ****_**FROM: Unknown Number**  
_ i remembered that 911 was a thing but it doesnt fucking work  
****  
_**FROM: Unknown Number**_  
its like, the only number that itll even call or text or whatever is this one and i dont even know whose it fuckin IS  
  
_**FROM: Unknown Number**  
_ haha my phone has a big dumb crush on ur phone  
  
******_FROM: Unknown Number_**  
jeezus its quiet here i wish i had some music

.

"How do you know my name?" Nick asks tersely, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. It's been long enough now that they've both stopped taking nervous, furtive glances behind them, Nick electing to watch the grid in front of them and Griffin looking absently out of his window. Now though, he whips back around to give Nick a blank stare.

"Uh, what? Pretty sure I don't, dude."

Nick shakes his head, insists, "You said 'Nick, this changes everything' when we got in the car." It's been bugging him ever since the adrenaline faded enough to let him _think,_ for a few seconds. Truth be told, everything about this is weird, so long of _nothing_ and then just suddenly finding another guy stranded out here.

Griffin pauses, turns away and frowns down at his hands in his lap. He says, "I dunno, dude, that's just something I say. I mean, we call my brother fuckin' Juice, so." He gives a one shouldered shrug, then glances back up at him. "Your name is Nick?"

"Mhm."

The conversation sort of peters out after that, Griffin falling silent and turning back to his window, hands wringing in the corner of Nick’s eyes. It feels pathetic, but he’s almost desperate for something to say, something to keep him from falling back into his own head. He can’t shake the thrumming, nagging fear that he’s somehow imagined this all up, that maybe he’s going to shake himself awake cramped in the backseat, still alone in his greatass fucking truck, and then, whoop-de-doo, he’s probably going to climb out and jump in front of it.

“Nick,” and Griffin’s light touch on his arm startles him more than it should. He makes a small affirmative sound, tries to casually tilt his head in Griffin’s direction like he didn’t just almost freak the fuck out at human contact.

Griffin’s had the same distracted frown on his face since he got in the car, and Nick watches it twist into something like disgust, something like awe, when he says, “What _was_ that thing?”  
  
Nick does just about all he _can_ do, and shrugs. It defies description, hurts to look at, seems to break past every guideline a human brain has for ‘yes, this is a thing I can process and understand,’ and just seems to verge right into ‘horrorterror which consumes all senses and steals breath’ territory. “I really, honestly, don’t know, dude. I don’t, uh, want to know? And as long as I keep driving, it doesn’t catch up to me, so.” He shrugs again, feeling almost silly for no reason.

“So we drive,” Griffin finishes with a nod, like Nick didn’t just give him a non-answer and confine him to a truck for infinity.

.

Jesus, Nick can’t really remember the last time he smiled before this, excluding the vaguely frightening bursts of hysterical, desperate laughter he’d barked out in the early miles before the numb acceptance set in. But, here’s the thing:  
  
Griffin is fucking _hilarious._  
  
No, seriously, Nick doesn’t think he’s ever laughed this hard in his fucking _life,_ choking every breath past embarrassing giggles, leaning forward until his forehead thumps the wheel and he’s clutching his stomach with both hands. “Holy _fuck,”_ he wheezes, taking a few breaths to recover before he says, “So we get Gordon Ramsay,” waits for Griffin’s “Yep,” continues, “So we get Gordon Ramsay for this, so we’re like, totally cool spending, I guess, the entire budget for the game on paying him?”

Griffin tilts his head from side to side, eyebrows scrunched together. “Well, I mean, we don’t need him for very _much._ Just like, the fuckin’, tutorial and the whole entrapment aspect, and then it is. _Entirely_ cube.” He waves a hand broadly in front of them, a visionary with a master design in his sights, then glances at Nick for confirmation. Griffin raises his eyebrows, smiles in admittedly a _very_ convincing manner that makes Nick snort.

“Oh, okay,” he says indulgently, “So we only spend 99% of our budget on him. That should leave us _plenty_ for the actual, the actual graphics–” and he’s cut off both by Griffin’s voice and the arm that’s thrust almost in front of his face.

 _“Nicolas,”_ Griffin whines, “We don’t need to put any effort into the fuckin’, the fuckin’ _game_ part of it, we don’t need graphics, we just need _cube,_ you’re forgetting we are literally, like, illegally _blackmailing_ our players into continuing to play, to get that sweet login every single day, or we will, y’know, ruin their lives! Et voila, we don’t need fucking, _money,_ my dude. Just extortion”

Nick nods in agreement, and he can’t keep the dumb grin off of his face, not when Griffin is _right there,_ all insistent fluttery hand motions and insanely infectious enthusiasm for their dumb pretend game, and like. Well, the cynical part of Nick’s mind is saying he’s just been starved for human interaction, literally _any_ human being with a beating heart and functional vocal chords would be welcome company, but, honestly, Nick’s still trying to figure out how they got _here_ from the sentence, “Alright, I’m gonna pitch you a video game idea, you gotta tell me what you _honestly_ think here,” and he’s stupidly, selfishly grateful that if someone else had to be trapped in this dinky truck with him, it was someone like Griffin.

Griffin’s fiddling with levers on the underside of his seat, leaning himself back and kicking his feet up. “Heathen,” Nick teases, and gets a grin in return.

“Nick, my man, my car buddy,” Griffin sighs, locking his fingers behind his head, “I gotta say, it kinda fuckin’ sucks that we got stuck with literally _the_ most boring, plain, dumb eternity _ever.”_

Over the last - however long it had been - he’s gotten comfortable in the ebb and flow of conversations with Griffin, and without really thinking he challenges, “Well, I mean. Sure, I agree, it’s fuckin’ dull, but would it really be any better if we were somewhere _other_ than Gridmap? An eternity with landmarks would still be like, _eternity.”_  
  
“Gridmap?” Griffin echoes, “That’s what we’re callin’ it?”  
  
Nick shrugs. “I mean, sure, whatever, might as well go with it. If the shoe fits.”  
  
Griffin nods absently, staring up at the roof of the truck. “I _mean,”_ he starts, then trails off, nose scrunching and mouth twisting into a concentrated frown. Nick takes his hands off of the wheel, turns himself as best as he can to lean against the door and face Griffin.

“I mean,” he starts again, this time with more confidence. “I guess no matter what we got, we’d get pretty sick of it _eventually,_ because even if it wasn’t all the same, if it were like, procedurally generated eternity, it’d still be going nowhere, and that lack of a destination really gets to a guy. But still, I’d really appreciate if like, I didn’t get a headache every time I looked out the _goddamn_ window, Nick!” Griffin’s sort of pulled himself up with the force of his annoyance, arms going flying out.

Nick nods sagely, says, “Squares are the devil.”  
  
“Squares are the devil!” Griffin repeats enthusiastically, “The scourge of Gridmap, the great fucking evil. That thing that was chasing us? Fucking, _square._ ”

Nick snorts, shakes his head with a small, quiet sort of smile. This, this situation they’re in now, it’s still _insane,_ but the dread feels _less_ when he’s sharing it with someone else. It feels like he’s sort of sharing the aloneness of it all, in a way.

.

“I mean, what kind of eternity would _you_ rather we were driving through?” Nick asks, for the sake of keeping the conversation going, keeping quiet from creeping back into the truck like stale air.

Griffin _hmmmm_ s in consideration, tapping a beat on his thighs before giving one firm clap. “Something with _ramps,”_ he says, a wicked sort of grin on his face. “And just, y'know, maybe a _little_ grid, some nice flat grid for the sake of like, familiarity, but what I _really_ want is some nature. Y’know, some grass by the road, some trees, maybe a _river…_ like, like a _country_ road, all dirt and–”  
  
.

Abruptly, something starts crunching under the tires. Nick slams the brakes, sending him and Griffin jolting forward.

Griffin’s smile has gone stiff and frightened. “Ha, ha, hey, uh, Nick?” he says, humorlessly.

“Yeah, Griffin?” He squeaks out, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“What the _fuck_ was that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coolgames inc is gay culture


	3. author's note

it's 8.7.17 my time.

basically, i won't be deleting this fic. i am proud of what i've written, regardless if the man behind one of the characters turned out to be an absolute prickhead, and i don't have a problem with keeping it up for posterity. it's mine, and he can have it when im fucking dead. i'm still following rpf rules -- this is based off of the character of nick robinson, not the man himself.

that being said, i'm sure the fuck not gonna finish it either, and that kind of pisses me off, because i was  _excited._ i had story notes outlining the guys discovering odd powers -- nick figuring out he can stop time right as they're about to crash the plane, griffin fucking with points of articulation -- i was ready to face up to the unique challenge of writing video game mechanics as if they were organic features of the universe i was creating. as of now i'm considering turning it into a feature of a dnd campaign i might end up dming for, but the fun thing about fanfiction is the opportunity to create a transformative work; to look at something someone else made and do something  _new_ with it. i'm sorry i won't be able to do that and share it with the awe-inspiringly supportive community i found here.

so, uhhhhh

nick nick nick nick, na nick nick nick

you fucked up my fic


End file.
